Thanks Matt and Hilary. Having slept on it I think you are right that the earlier alternating meter versions read better. So I’ll go back and salvage that in rev 3
Matt. Still thinking about despise v surprise. I think I’ll try revise for size. And Hilary, given that several triolet rules are broken, and the last line is already not a close link to L2, then, if it makes the poem better, why not butcher it properly? I have taken your advice and shortened the last line.
Thanks for dropping in Yves. Sorry it was on the dull side. I’m probably not well-read enough to have picked up the “man looking into mirror “ trope. But I would say that the poem is more about a man avoiding looking into the mirror, in the vain hope that if he can’t see any evidence of his aging, then he is not aging. Some sort of twist on the Dorian Gray story perhaps. And true, if I have flattened the music then it will be less musical.
Many thanks each of you
Joe
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